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Over All, Colleges Accept an Average of 2 of 3 Applicants

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Over All, Colleges Accept an Average of 2 of 3 Applicants

By Jacques Steinberg October 20, 2010 5:14 pmOctober 20, 2010 5:14 pm

On The Choice, we try as often as we can — though probably not as much as we should — to remind applicants and their parents that there about 2,000 four-year colleges in this country, and that most accept a sizable majority of those who apply.

For those families fixated on the nation’s most selective colleges — some of which accepted fewer than 10 percent of those who applied last year — such figures are probably of little comfort. But for others seeking to take a broader view, that 67 percent acceptance rate should be of some solace.

Surely, nearly everyone gets accepted by a worthy institution, though not necessarily by their first or even fifth choices. (Another scrap of data from the report, though not necessarily as reassuring: The percentage of students nationally who submitted seven or more applications reached 23 percent in 2009, up a percentage point from a year earlier.)

The report contains dozens of the most current measurements of the admissions process. But here’s another figure that is worth noting: Nearly one of every three colleges or universities (30 percent) experienced a decrease in applications in 2009. That is the largest proportion to experience such a drop since 1996. The authors of the report theorize that the sluggish economy is certainly a factor, with at least some applicants setting their sights on two-year colleges, at least initially.

One final statistic that seemed telling: Universities with early-admission programs continue to accept a higher percentage of applicants, on average, in those early rounds, with the chances of one’s being accepted early (as opposed to one’s chances in the regular pool) continuing to grow. For example, the acceptance rate among applicants, over all, under binding early-decision programs was 70 percent in 2009, compared with 55 percent in the main round. By contrast, those figures were 61 and 55 percent, respectively, in fall 2006.

What’s your response to the figures cited above? And if you’ve sifted through the report yourself, which numbers caught your eye, and why? Please use the comment box below to let us know.

If one were to properly look at American colleges then one should see a business that is assured a large market and hence spends most of its resources and time enhancing the intrinsic value of its brand! The better colleges look the more they can charge. If folks only understood that colleges have over valued themselves by orders of magnitude then few would suffer financial debt slavery for decades!

Just remember, everything one can learn in college is also found in a well stocked library, book store or at Amazon dot com!

To put it another way, learn as many useful skills as possible as cheaply as possible and one will be successful! If one is chasing a pot of gold then always remember that the pot of gold disappears with the rainibow!

I’m not so sure about your interpretation of the early-decision acceptance rates. I don’t think it’s quite right to state that one’s chances of being accepted are higher if one applies via early-decision given the very high likelihood that there is significant self-selection in the pool of applicants who apply via that route. In other words, (presumably) most applicants who apply via early-decision are very highly-qualified so we can’t directly compare them with the larger population of all applicants. More simply, that early-decision applicants are accepted more often is probably due to them simply being “better” applicants and has little if anything to do with them having apply via early-decision.

(It would be interesting to know how much – if any – applying for early-decision affects one’s chances at being admitted. But that would require a relatively sophisticated setup to control for many variables and even then I’m not sure that it would be possible to draw sound conclusions.)

An early decision candidates may or may not be very highly qualified. But what he/she is, without question, is a guaranteed attendee, and thus highly beneficial to the school’s “yield” number and its coffers.

To me, this is the most striking example of inequity in college admissions. Students looking for financial aid simply cannot run the risk of applying E.D., making it a luxury that in many cases, only the wealthy can afford.

Kevin is right…not only are many of the most motivated, organized and aggressive learners likely to apply early but so are the athletic recruits and the legacies. A school that accepts 500+ students early decision has likely already filled their athletic slots with 200 recruited athletes. Many schools only consider legacies in this early round as well. If one were to remove these two categories from the analysis, I imagine that early decision and regular admission would look pretty similar.

Last year, the Common Application had a question which asked if the applicant was going to be applying for aid, both financial need based and merit aid. (I think it is still a question on the student application.) As I looked at that question, I wondered how the colleges looked at the answers.

Weren’t the admission officers well aware of how the student answered the applying for aid question?

Did it hurt a student’s chances for admission if they indicated on that required question on the Common Application that they would seek aid?

Where the applicants asking only for merit scholarships going to be treated differently?

The financial issues were clearly being considered at some colleges who were members in the college common application group.

Correct me if I’m wrong: If someone applies early admission and gets in, they are required to go to that school. Thus, there is no haggling over competing tuitions and scholarships, and the student must pay whatever the college says. Isn’t this grossly unfair, in favor of the very rich? Or is there still some motivation for the schools to offer a better deal?

The article would be better if it defined “selective” and if it distinguished among the moderately selective (say, 1 in 3) to very selective (say >1 10). High school data bases like Naviance might enable them to do a finer-grained analysis, too, limited valuably to their own students.

I interpreted the article (and the data it analyzed) to say the acceptance rate within the early decision applicant pool increased by 9 percentage points from 2006 (61%) to 2009 (70%), whereas the acceptance rate among general pool applicants remained constant (55% in 2006 and 55% in 2009).

Historically, the early decision applicant pool has been characterized by overall higher test scores and gpas as compared to the general applicant pool. I don’t think the article or the data implied that students within the general pool necessarily increase their odds of acceptance by merely applying under early admission.

Early decision agreements I’m familiar with require the student to attend if accepted *AND* offered an adequate financial aid package.

Higher acceptance rates by nine points for early decision in 2009 versus 2006. 23% of the applicants submitting apps to 7 or more colleges. Lower applicant levels at 30% of the colleges/universities. And what this article did not mention was a surprising number of colleges not filling their classes by the end of last May. Conclusion: More applicants are shopping for the best deal forcing the schools to commit to practically anyone who can pay full tuition and who indicates that by going early decision. Overall, more interest in two year schools, better financial packages and the schools will take most everyone in hailing distance of traditional admissions standards who applies early decision and who will pay retail. Schools are feeling the pressure and the lack of preparation with usable, real-world skills at the end is casting an increasingly bright light on the value not delivered. Wake up academia, you are in a business that is over-priced, and cannot deliver an economic differentiator in a globalized, automated economy – at the undergraduate level.